Britannia from the UK & To the UK!

My Wife & I are not serial cruisers as yet,only 2 so far &,for me at least,the jury is still out as to whether they are wonderful or awful,but in March we are flying out to Barbados to join Britannia on the (much changed)cruise that sees her return to the UK for the summer.

This isn't our first time on Britannia,we used to have to take our summer hols during the summer school break & as such sailed on her during her first summer season to Spain,Portugal,Canaries & Madeira,on what the announcer seemed to delight in calling our summer school cruise,& as such the ship was seemingly crammed full of kids,hell by the main pool area,thank goodness we soon found Serenity,shame they shut the area up at night.

We had mixed feelings about the ship but couldn't help but wonder how different life on board might be if the ship was not as full or without the kids.

Next month I guess we are going to find out but am curious to know if other travellers have done UK based cruises & cruises based elsewhere & their observations about how different it is,if at all,& how full the ship is or feels..

One thing I have noticed is a thread which indicates problems with finding sunbeds,on our first Britannia cruise it turned out to be people working on shows on board who were up early & putting towels,books,hats,etc on sun beds,like to think P&O did something about that,maybe not!

Personally that's why I don't sail on the huge ships. I never feel crowded on Oriana or Arcadia and we always sail out of Southampton. We did one cruise on Azura and said never again.

My Wife & I are not serial cruisers as yet,only 2 so far &,for me at least,the jury is still out as to whether they are wonderful or awful,but in March we are flying out to Barbados to join Britannia on the (much changed)cruise that sees her return to the UK for the summer.

This isn't our first time on Britannia,we used to have to take our summer hols during the summer school break & as such sailed on her during her first summer season to Spain,Portugal,Canaries & Madeira,on what the announcer seemed to delight in calling our summer school cruise,& as such the ship was seemingly crammed full of kids,hell by the main pool area,thank goodness we soon found Serenity,shame they shut the area up at night.

We had mixed feelings about the ship but couldn't help but wonder how different life on board might be if the ship was not as full or without the kids.

Next month I guess we are going to find out but am curious to know if other travellers have done UK based cruises & cruises based elsewhere & their observations about how different it is,if at all,& how full the ship is or feels..

One thing I have noticed is a thread which indicates problems with finding sunbeds,on our first Britannia cruise it turned out to be people working on shows on board who were up early & putting towels,books,hats,etc on sun beds,like to think P&O did something about that,maybe not!

We tend to cruise outside school holidays or on adult only ships so I have never experienced what you have described. I think you will find a cruise with few kids onboard to be much different. Our only cruise on Britannia was almost completely adult and we enjoyed it.

I hope the show crew reserving sun beds has been sorted out, l suggest that if not, and it happens on your upcoming cruise, you should report it to an officer, maybe the cruise director (or what their current job title is). I don’t advise picking up their things and throwing them in the pool! 😏

The positioning cruises are normally attractively priced, and can 'ahem' attract the price concious element of society. This does not, of course apply to contributors to this forum!

You may therefore need to be prepared for slightly different types of behaviour compared to your standard14 day cruise!

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Thanks for your replies folks,I have to admit that after our last experience adult only seemed the way to go &,indeed,my first choice for this trip,which is for a significant birthday,was the Hong Kong to Dubai leg of Arcadias' round the world cruise,always wanted to travel East but somehow have spent years touring the USA which we love,it fitted the bill perfectly with it's destinations,sadly by the time I had managed to work my early retirement to free up the time it was sold out,Britannias' cruise seemed the next best option,only 1 flight for which we have booked premier class & a corner suite on board,looking forward to it!